Dave,
My boyfriend, Duane, is the
pepper grower in this family. He put some of his "extra" Nocera Yellow Bells in a terra cotta pot last year with decent results. I was the one who watered for the most part because apart from that pot, all of the pots were my dwarf tomatoes. I wouldn't recommend a terra cotta pot for one thing. They heat up and dry out too much. Use a plastic 5-15 gal. bucket with 1/2" holes drilled in the bottom. We used Pro-Mix soilless container mix with water-retaining polymer gel mixed in. That formulation did wonders for very hot periods in the summer when I had to water 2x per day.
As for varieties, I think Duane is planning on putting all of his ornamentals into pots, plus some of the habs because they tend to be shorter. I think he's also hoping to bring them inside to overwinter under lights.
On the topic of germination and growth: we've learned that
peppers take longer to germinate than tomatoes and once they do come up, they take their sweet time
growing as well. Duane started the bulk of his
peppers on Feb 25 and they're 5" tall now. I started my tomatoes on March 23 and they're 3" tall now, catching up to the
peppers quickly. He used a heating mat under his
pepper seed flat to help with germination and even with that, a lot of his
seeds took more than 2 weeks to come up.
I hope this gives you some comfort, hang in there,
Julianna
